When Marian arrived at Jim Thorpe on Saturday afternoon, the Colts fell into a well-designed trap.

Orchestrated by the Olympians' pressure defense, the trap baited Marian into 18 turnovers, and the rest was history, as Jim Thorpe came away with a 57-45 victory.Finding his team trailing 12-11 after the first quarter, Olympians head coach Jason McElmoyle sensed his team needed a spark."We told the kids that we wanted to pick up the tempo and dictate the flow of the game to our favor," said McElmoyle. "We wanted to gamble a little bit and try to force some turnovers. Fortunately it worked out for us and we were able to convert some of those turnovers into easy layups, which sometimes we haven't been doing recently."In a first half that featured five lead changes, a Jordan McElmoyle three-pointer with 2:37 left in the second quarter gave Jim Thorpe a 23-20 lead. Marian never got any closer.McElmoyle drilled his second trey 10 seconds into the third quarter. A turnover resulted in a Chris Micciche layup eight seconds later and Matt Elmore capitalized on another Colts' miscue, which resulted in a 7-0 Jim Thorpe run in the first 50 seconds of the second half and a 32-22 Olympians lead."Our kids played really hard today," said the first-year Olympians head coach. "We started getting into the lane and hitting some shots, and when you can execute the fundamentals of basketball, good things are going to happen."One fundamental that still needs to be worked on is free-throw shooting, as the Olympians shot just 10-for-22 in the second half and 16-for-35 in the game."We've been struggling with our shooting all year, not just from the free throw line, but in general," said McElmoyle. "It's hit or miss. Tonight, I thought we shot well from the outside, but our foul shooting was horrendous."Marian eventually closed the deficit to seven points early in the fourth quarter, but offensive rebounding and second chance opportunities allowed Jim Thorpe to answer back with a 7-0 run that gave the Olympians a 51-36 lead (their largest of the game) with three minutes remaining."We do some really good things, we just don't do them consistently, " said Marian head coach John Patton. "We used some timeouts early to try to handle their press. We had a press break in, but they just made some really athletic plays with stealing the cross-court pass and it really put us behind the eight ball."Speaking of being behind the eight ball, Marian's playoff chances are now on life-support. With a 6-10 record (3-6 League), the Colts must win five of their last six games to qualify for districts or else win all four remaining league games.Shane Snisky paced Jim Thorpe (7-12, 3-8) with a game-high 14 points, while Brendan Carroll and Chris Micciche tacked on 11 points apiece. Rayan Green pulled down 11 rebounds, as the Olympians outrebounded Marian 48-38.For the Colts, Aaron DeAngelo and Brandon Mohammed led the way with 12 points apiece.Jim Thorpe shot 18-for-51 from the field, while Marian converted 18 of its 46 attempts from the floor.In the JV game, Marian took home a 49-23 victory.MARIANKarnish 1-0-1-2, Vercusky 1-2-5-4, Puza 0-0-0-0, Karchner 0-0-0-0, Kuczynski 1-3-4-5, Cortese 0-0-0-0, DeAngelo 6-0-0-12, Latham 0-0-0-0, Mohammed 5-2-4-12, Wesner 4-0-0-10, Weber 0-0-0-0, Myers 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 18-7-14-45.JIM THORPECarroll 3-3-4-11, Veney 1-1-2-4, Elmore 2-1-2-5, Micciche 3-5-10-11, Green 2-1-4-5, Luciana 0-1-2-1, McElmoyle 2-0-0-6, S. Snisky 5-4-11-14, Everitt 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 18-16-35-57.Marian 12 10 8 15 - 45Jim Thorpe 11 14 11 21 - 57Three-Pointers: Marian - Wesner 2; Jim Thorpe - Carroll 2, McElmoyle 2, Veney 1.